


When Did History Get So Goddamn Athletic?

by calrissian18



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (Off-screen) Character Death, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon-Typical Violence, Guardian Derek, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Magic Is Persecuted, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Orphan Stiles, Slow Build, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles had magic, Derek was his guardian.  It sounded simple enough in theory.  It was freaking <i>magic</i>, after all, and Derek was kind of <i>designed</i> to be his ideal other half.</p><p>Nothing ever worked the way it was meant to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Did History Get So Goddamn Athletic?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for syllirium's [gorgeous artwork](http://syllirium.tumblr.com/post/78140337371/my-work-for-teen-wolf-reverse-bang-thats-what-my), which inspired fic in me that just had no chance of getting done in one go. I truly hope I can build a world worthy of it.

Stiles rolled over.  The ground was cold beneath him and it felt like he’d swallowed ice water, his chest thick with it.  The dirt was hard packed and unrepentant and the cicadas seemed to get reactionarily louder every time he shifted.

“Go to sleep,” was growled at his back.

Stiles ignored it.  Instead he stared at his own pale fingers.  They were dishearteningly monochrome, white and lifeless.  The creaking of the trees and rustle of the leaves seemed to crawl up his back, raise the hair on his neck and tickle his ears.  If there was one thing he wouldn’t be doing tonight, it was sleeping.

A snap of a branch jerked him out of the forest’s lull.  He careened upwards, nearly toppling over with the intensity of it, and craned his head around, eyes beady.

The wolf at his side picked up its head from its paws, eyes going dark.  Stiles could barely make it out and they were only a few feet from each other.  It seemed to be made of shadow and smoke and Stiles saw the edges of it flicker and  _drip_ , bleed out of shape before snapping back.  It was twice the size of anything that would be roaming these woods, twice the size of a normal wolf, but Stiles still felt trepidation trip over his skin, raising goosebumps in its ungainly wake.

It didn’t take long for the wolf to slink out of sight, leaving Stiles alone and feeling every inch of it.  He settled back against a tree, trying to square his shoulders, make himself larger.  The rising sound of the insect symphony scraped over his nerves.  He set more of his focus on squinting off into the woods, staring in the direction the wolf had gone.

So, of course, the all clear came from behind him and nearly made him jump out of his skin.  He could still feel his heart and other internal organs trying to rise past the barrier of his skin in an attempt to escape.

“Just a rabbit,” was the gruff news bulletin.  “Sleep.”

Stiles felt something a lot like hatred swell up, take control of his vocal chords and say, “You’re not my  _dad_.”  An empathic flinch joined his own.  It was too raw, too soon, and yet it was also the only thing he had in the sweeping blackness of his mind.  It had been bloodless, simple, clean.  A snap of his neck and a blankness in him, a lack of  _person_  behind the eyes.  Stiles had stared into the emptiness in them, sure it would swallow him whole, huddling under a desk – right in front of the lifeless body of Stiles’ last flesh and blood – and a poor illusion.

It wouldn’t have held long, Stiles had known that.  A hand had thrust in, torn him out, made him run until his legs were shaking under his weight and he was near to collapse.

Stiles still expected to hear the violent footfalls of a running mob, inflicting wounds in the dirt, any second.

“You need to rest.  We’ll be moving at first light.”

He hadn’t thought the wolf had it in him to be so diplomatic.  He was always spoiling for a fight, the tense of his shoulders seeming to unwind at the first promise of a challenge and now he let this one slip past without so much as snarling at it.  Stiles had just watched his father murdered in front of him so he supposed that excused his own lack of tact.  He didn’t want it to.  He wanted him to argue, to push him around the way he always did, but he was nothing short of subdued. 

Stiles’ eyes cut over to the stark silhouette of a man hunched over at his side.  His head was bowed, squatting lowly and staring into the dirt like he could find some meaning in it.  His eyes were still dark.

Stiles swallowed, trying to bite back the visceral reaction he had to looking at the thick stubble on that face.  There was a part of him, a part that made his fingers tingle – like he was holding the tips of them over a jet of water, that wanted nothing more than to make this man bleed.  He lowered his gaze and a shiver snaked up his spine.  “It’s too cold,” he said, his teeth chattering slightly.  It was true that the temperature was dropping rapidly.  It wasn’t dangerous, just uncomfortable.

Coal black eyes fixed on him.  “You can do something about that.”

Stiles curled his fingers into his palms instinctively.  The spark, the life in them, was gone again.  He didn’t rise to the bait.  He was too uncertain of it, too convinced he’d somehow lost the secret his father had died to protect.  His magic was erratic and unpredictable at the best of times.  The death of his father had seemed to make it either completely impotent or made it actively work  _against_  his own agendas.  His mouth twisted to the side.  “It’s fine,” he spat.

The wolf took a tentative step towards him, the man lost in the space of a blink.  The fur was shaking though, like something was trying to break back out of it.  It seemed neither of them were even at their baseline of ‘mediocre’ then.

Stiles purposefully turned away, shouldering up against his tree.  He gritted his teeth, his jaw creaking from how intent he was on that.  “Just leave me alone, Derek.”

There was a pause, not even a shift in the dirt during it, and then retreating footfalls from behind him.  Stiles, objectively, knew he had no real reason to blame Derek for his father’s murder.  Derek was  _his_  guardian.  Theirs was the only bond that mattered to him, weak though it was.  He’d had every reason to focus solely on keeping Stiles alive.  Everything else was  _meant_  to be secondary to that.  It was even the way Stiles’ father would have wanted it, if he’d been given the choice.

Stiles still wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forgive him.  He had practically felt the rift between them widen to a gulf when Derek made the choice to protect him and leave his father to fend for himself against the black masks and murderous intent behind them.  His father was dead, and a part of that was Derek’s to shoulder.

A part of it was Stiles’, too.

* * *

“Get up.”

Stiles’ eyes cracked open.  His lashes were glued together with sleep and he rubbed it away with a grimy finger, irritating his eye.  The sun’s rays were strong breaking through the canopy and the light was a darker orange that spoke to early afternoon rather than morning.  Derek had said they would be moving at first light.  If Stiles didn’t  _know_  that Derek didn’t sleep, he might have suspected him of hitting the snooze a few times there.

He blinked and let the tight purse of Derek’s mouth come into focus.  A belated charge of fear shocked its way through him, swifting through scenarios of them having been found, captured, severed from one another before the reality of their safety planted itself firmly in his mind.  He shivered and Derek swayed forward like he was considering some sort of comfort before he used the motion to mimic a pendulum, leaned back and hauled himself up to his feet.

He was a gruff man, looking every bit the bad influence fathers would warn their sons about.  Stiles broke away from the thought, crippled by the realization that everything seemed to lead back to that.

Derek tilted his head back, squinting up at the break in the trees to find the location of the sun in the sky.  His dark hair rustled at the front and his eyes looked lighter, their steadfast green once again.  They snapped back down to fix on Stiles.  “We need to get moving.”

Stiles nodded and scrambled to his feet.  He didn’t know exactly where they were headed but he trusted Derek that it would be somewhere safe.  That was only ever what this was about, keeping Stiles safe, keeping him silent and unnoticed, keeping him from experiencing anything really, lest it be dangerous somehow.  Derek would’ve kept him in one of those sensory deprivation rooms if he could’ve.  His dad would’ve been right behind him, too.

Had that even been six degrees?  Stiles rubbed at his forehead.

Derek frowned.  When he did, he used his whole face and even his shoulders.  Stiles liked that he was so committed to it.  He wondered if it would be the same with a smile.  He didn’t think he’d ever find out.  “Your head?”

Stiles would never understand how they’d been shackled together.  He didn’t even deserve a guardian.  He wasn’t half as powerful as the other magic users he’d known and yet here he was with this coveted thing, this man who was meant to be the other half of him, and yet they were complete and total polar opposites.

His mom had called it a yin and yang symbiosis.  Stiles had called it bullshit.

Derek would narrow everything down to its simplest terms, if he could excise a phrase he would.  Nothing spare and nothing left on the table, only what was needed.  Stiles was all about the extras, the miscellaneous.  If he could fit it in, chances are, he would.  He rambled and used six feet of tape when an inch would do and generally experienced everything as larger than life.  Derek was always trying to make him smaller, make him quieter.  Maybe if Stiles had heeded that, his dad would still be alive.

He squinted back at Derek, brushing aside the question he’d asked, the one that didn’t matter either way.  So he could ask one that did.  “Do you think I killed him?”

Derek’s mouth tightened, jaw working.  “You saw what killed him,” he bit out after a long moment.  “You’re not powerful enough to be in two places and try getting a mask over that,” he shoved his finger into the end of Stiles’ nose, hard, “bulbous thing.”

Stiles pulled away.  It’d made his head pound.  It really did hurt.  “You know what I mean.”

Derek’s gaze went sharp, searching.  “I don’t,” he said coolly.  He must have noticed the way Stiles winced because one side of his mouth listed downwards.  “Are you in pain?”

Stiles scowled.  “My dad’s dead.  Yeah, I’m in pain.  Fix  _that_.”

Derek’s expression hardened and shattered, leaving nothing but blankness behind.  There was a rigidity to him as he stalked off, Stiles following the bruised aubergine of his soft cotton pullover.  The one that his mom had knitted for Derek, the one that had grown with him and Stiles and that was fraying at the elbows and going fuzzy.  Derek loved the thing, even if he’d never said so.

The anger bled away as the minutes did until Stiles was listlessly following Derek through the sparse undergrowth.  Beacon Hills already felt like nothing more than a memory.  Or, rather, a nightmare.  He’d lost so much there and gotten nothing back.  The sounds of the bustling little town were far away and instead Stiles was privy to the call of starlings and the tumbling travel of rustling leaves and their own feet crunching over branches.

The white noise of his own mind was beginning to drown out the rest when Derek said, quietly, “I didn’t kill him either.”

Stiles jerked out of his reverie, narrowing his eyes at Derek’s back, at the pullover his mom had knitted, at the reminder of the family that had loved Derek and that Derek hadn’t lifted a finger to save.  “You might as well have.”  He’d snapped off the words and spat them out before he could think better of them.  He could see the horrible clench of Derek’s muscles travel through every bit of him, starting at the bunch in the base of his neck and dripping down.

Derek disappeared behind a thick trunk and the wolf reemerged on the other side of it.

It wasn’t true and Stiles shouldn’t have said it but he didn’t tell Derek either of those things.  He wanted to be alone, at least for the moment.  This gave the illusion of it without abandoning him in the middle of unfamiliar terrain.

It was the best either of them could do.

Derek still led them but he no longer looked back to check that Stiles was keeping up, no longer slowed his pace when he realized Stiles couldn’t tread the same path.  Stiles couldn’t exactly blame him for that.  He deserved a lot worse, and more than a part of him wanted Derek to give it to him.

The sun was high in the sky now and starting to get to him.  His head felt fuzzier and there were two bug bites on his arm that he couldn’t stop scratching.  Sweat rolled down his cheek and neck and his shirt got caught on a branch, again.  He’d already shucked the plaid overshirt and tied it around his waist.  He swiped at his forehead with his sleeve, glad the fabric wasn’t any lighter as it was already showing dirt stains.

He looked up, after nearly ripping a hole in the hem of his t-shirt, and realized the dark wolf he’d been following wasn’t in front of him any longer.  Stiles whirled around.  “Derek?”  Panic was starting to well up in him and he fought it down, working his throat over the sudden onset of fear.  “Derek!”  His voice came out higher, strident, but still level.

Something cold nudged into his hand and Stiles started violently.  Derek had circled around and nosed into the hollow of his palm.  If wolves could smirk, Stiles had no doubt Derek would be taking full advantage.  Derek stalked past him, the jut of his shoulder blade brushing the joint of Stiles’ hip.  He was behemoth in this form and Stiles still felt a tenseness upon first seeing him, his mind telling him anything so large couldn’t possibly be friendly.

Derek’s gait was slow, slow enough that Stiles could walk at his side if he wanted to.

He didn’t.

He kept a barrier of a few feet between them, following the flick of his tail through the forest of skinny trees.  He stepped over a fallen log and slipped on a patch of moss that had gathered on the other side, wobbled and would have fallen forward.  Derek stopped, bared his teeth and rammed his side up against the bend of Stiles’ knees, forcing him back upright.

Before Stiles had even worked out what had happened, one moment about to get a face full of dirt and the next standing on shaky legs, Derek had bounded off through the trees.  “I’m just meant to be following the invisible trail you’re leaving then?” Stiles said snidely.  There weren’t even pawprints in mud.  Derek left a completely undisturbed path.

He circled back again, this time not coming from behind Stiles but through the undergrowth at his side and his gait slowed to one Stiles had some hope of following.

Stiles alternated between staring up at the waving leaves, neon green in the sunlight, watching squirrels scrambling along branches, staring at his own feet and pinpointing Derek’s darkness in all this color.  It wouldn’t be his fault if he lost track of him again.

He didn’t for a long time, got familiar with how it  _felt_  when Derek was just ahead of him so he didn’t have to pay the strictest attention.  Which he wasn’t exactly known for.

He was studying a winding track of ants in the dirt, willing his eyes to sharpen, when he ran into the ass-end of Derek.  “You could have warned me, asshat,” he said half-heartedly, craning his head around.  This bit of forest didn’t look any different than the last or even where they’d started.  Stiles worked his jaw.  “ _What_?”

Derek nudged the side of his face into Stiles’ hip, pushing him forward and practically  _into_  a row of bushes.

Stiles glared at them.  They were lush and the branches bent rather than snapped when he swayed into them but they were just, you know, bushes.

“The berries, you idiot,” Derek snapped.

Stiles turned to find the man standing behind him.  Only his feet still belonged to the wolf.  Because Derek was as terrible at being a guardian as Stiles was a mage.  He smirked and looked down at them pointedly.

Derek followed his gaze and his cheeks went a ruddy blush color.  He scowled, crossing his arms over his chest, and stalked off on awkward legs out of sight.

Stiles shrugged, pulled off a few of the dark purple berries he hadn’t even noticed and squinted at them.  He stared hard, turning one of them between long fingers.  The tips of them sparked up a lighter purple and Stiles dropped his handful in shock.  Berries bounced down to the dirt, a few ricocheting off the rubber soles of his Chucks.  He’d wanted them to be ripe but for all he knew he’d just made them poisonous.  Or done nothing at all.  It had felt like nothing.

The point was, he hadn’t  _meant_  to use his magic at all.

His fingertips were still glowing and he curled them into his palm, trying to hide it.  He shook out his hand and didn’t look back at it until he’d covered it with the sleeve of the overshirt tied around his waist.  He used it like a glove over his fingers to pick out new berries and shove them into his mouth.

He crunched down, the skin breaking open and fresh juices exploding over his tongue.  Stiles closed his eyes and savored, only opening them when he was ready to pick more.  Plaid came into view as he stared down at the shirt covering his hand.  There was blood on the very edge of the sleeve, almost hidden in the weave of the colors.  Either Derek’s or the shadow demon’s.  His father hadn’t—

Stiles’ appetite dried up.  He stared down at the bush full of berries with a sour expression.  It had been a good find of Derek’s though, regardless of whatever else.  The berries were sweet and tasty and well worth the trek.  Stiles supposed he owed it to Derek to tell him as much.  Not that he had any idea where he was anymore.

He wasn’t too worried about it either way.  Derek was crippled by his own purpose, meant to keep him alive and safe and therefore never able to truly make it clear how much he’d rather do the opposite.  Because he, quite literally,  _couldn’t_.

“Did you eat?”

Stiles didn’t even notice his eyes were back on the fallen berries until he saw Derek’s head dip in his periphery, following his gaze.  He looked up to find Derek’s mouth twisting to the side.

Derek met his stare, dark eyes blazing.  “You hate me so much you’d rather starve?”  He started to back away and Stiles’ hand shot out of its own volition.

He curled the fingers of his left hand over Derek’s unnaturally warm skin, twisting the hair on his forearm with the movement, enough that Derek winced.  He hid his right behind his thigh.  He didn’t know if his fingertips were still glowing but, if they were, he didn’t want Derek to see.  “No,” he said firmly, grinding the word into sound.  “I dropped them, is all.  Not everything is an attack against  _you_.”

Derek’s paranoia was a frequent, and unwelcome (on Derek’s side) topic of conversation between them.  He squared his jaw, ripped his arm away, tossed back, “Just like Heather would never repeat what she saw you do.”

Stiles flinched, actually falling back a few steps.  He unconsciously let out a wounded sound.

Derek frowned, taking a step forward.

Stiles shook his head and croaked, “So you  _do_  think I killed him then.”

Derek fitted his arms together firmly over the wide expanse of his chest, emphasizing the pure strength of him.  He was like a scowly action figure, built for combat.  “I think you trusted the wrong person.  You were swayed by made-up eyes and blonde hair and now you’ve learned that looks can be deceiving.”

Stiles leaned into Derek’s space, screwing up his anger.  “You think that’s all it was?  We’ve been friends since we were in diapers and I had every reason to think—to believe—”

Derek shrugged, unmoved.  “A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” was all he said, a favorite fable of Stiles’ mother.

Stiles bit hard into his cheek before spitting out, “Fuck you.”  He hadn’t been thinking with his dick, whatever Derek believed.  Heather was his friend.  Or so he’d thought.  Maybe she’d been lashing out.  Maybe she felt betrayed that they’d been friends since before they even knew what the word meant and she’d never known he had magic.  Maybe she’d believed the propaganda that infiltrated every corner of their lives, that Stiles and people like him were degenerates, swayed by the power they had, seduced by darkness.  All Stiles knew was he refused to write her off as evil.  She’d meant too much to him for him to simplify her down to that.

Not Derek though.  He’d never liked her.  Hidden himself around her more often than not, gotten introduced as Stiles’ gloomy cousin Miguel or the stray wolf pup Grzmot when he didn’t.

Even when Stiles turned away, Derek followed, unwilling to let this one go.  “Are you still going to argue that she would  _never_  betray you?” he asked, the words coming out sharp and mocking.

Stiles tensed.  They’d argued  _intensely_  after Heather had found out, holed themselves up in Stiles’ room and screamed into one another’s faces.  It had been an accident, the way it usually was.  Stiles’ hand had simply lit up and the ground beneath their feet had started to tremble.  The edge of their overlook crumbled until a huge chunk of it was falling away.  He and Heather had had to jump back onto solid ground.

Stiles had insisted that Heather could be trusted.  Derek had been just as adamant that she had to be silenced, one way or another, either magically or physically.  He’d also not failed to stab at his usual argument, that Stiles would have better control if he bothered to  _learn_.  Stiles hadn’t spoken to him, until the police station, until his dad had died and Derek was yelling at him to run.

He didn’t want to live like Derek.  He didn’t want to be unable to trust people.  But Derek had been right, and he had been wrong.  That’s what it boiled down to.

“No,” he said quietly, “I’m not.  You’ve gotten what you always wanted.”  He stared down at the spread of his fingers.  His right ones were still carefully out of view.  “I don’t have anyone left.  You don’t have to be on constant guard anymore.  I’m done.”

When he looked up again, Derek’s eyes were narrowed and he looked not just angry, but  _furious_.  Stiles was baffled by it.  It was what Derek had always seemed to want, less potential threats waiting in the wings.  “I guess I’ll  _leave you_ to it then,” he forced out, the words shaking with how controlled they were, emphasis on a few of them for reasons Stiles didn’t understand.

The shoulders contorted first, pulling back, then the face lengthened, the forehead drew back and Stiles looked away as skin started to darken into fur.  It was odd and a little unsettling to watch, man bleeding into animal, so either he or Derek usually walked off while it happened.

He didn’t know why Derek was so upset.  He rarely did.  He seemed to take offense to the most random things and he treated Stiles’ whole existence like it was some grand chore and they genuinely failed at understanding or even liking one another.  Their bond was one part antagonism, one part dislike, and eight parts mistake.

“Derek,” Stiles called after him.  He hadn’t thanked him for finding the berries, though he’d meant to.  Derek just seemed to have a talent for rubbing him the wrong way.  He couldn’t see him and had no idea if Derek could hear him – and he supposed that meant this was half-assed effort at best – but he made sure to say the words: “You did good finding the berries.  Well,” he corrected himself.  “So, uh, thank you.  For that.  They were good.”  ‘Good’ felt a little weak but ‘delicious’ was overselling it and those were the only descriptors Stiles had on hand.  He shrugged to himself when he got no response.  He’d said what he meant to say, fuck Derek if he didn’t want to listen.

He kicked the berries he’d dropped under the bush’s foliage and walked off in the general direction Derek had.  He couldn’t go far, as he still didn’t know where Derek was leading them, but they both needed the break from each other so he didn’t resent Derek for taking a moment.  He found a moss-covered stump and plopped down on it.  It was starting to cool off as it transitioned into late afternoon, but not to the point where Stiles was in need of his overshirt again.

He wasn’t sure he even wanted the thing anymore.  It was tainted, bloodied, and he considered leaving it behind when they moved on but knew he a) wasn’t interested in leaving a trail that could be followed (Derek, alone, would have a shit fit) and b) would likely want it later on as the temperature continued to drop.

He tapped his fingers against his knee.  They were pale again.  The hands of someone who didn’t see enough of the sun.  He propped up his chin on the palm of one of them and waited.

A weak breeze ghosted over his skin.  It was just barely strong enough to be an annoyance, to make sure Stiles couldn’t settle comfortably, but it didn’t cool him any.  He kept trying to find a doze, a way of being unaware and awake but the inconsistent gusts of wind would jerk him out of it.

There was a small puddle near him that it would wrinkle the surface of every so often.  Stiles stared at it.  He half-blinked, getting on his hands and knees and carefully crawling closer.  The fingers of both of his hands were radiating a cool blue.  He gazed down at his own reflection.  A round, nervous face, moles dotting his cheek and neck, light and warm brown eyes that seemed to open a little wide blinked back at him.  He looked at least two years younger than his sixteen years.

The wind gusted over the surface again, distorting the image.  Stiles waited for it to still before dipping a finger into the center of it, blue offsetting blue.  The ripples spread out from the point of disruption and Stiles focused everything in him on making them into waves.  He visualized them growing from small distortions in the water to something more, something substantial, to cliffs made of water.  The ripples didn’t change and Stiles mentally pressed harder, staring at the blue of his own finger.

He wasn’t fighting the natural direction, only trying to enhance it.  It was meant to work like this.

It didn’t.

The ripples petered out to nothing and Stiles felt tears well up behind his eyes.  He fell back onto his ass, wrapped an arm around a drawn knee and bit hard into his lip.  This was just like every other attempt.  Nothing ever worked the way it was meant to.  Stiles couldn’t do magic, he and Derek were the very definition of disconnect and he was an orphan.

Nothing ever worked the way it was meant to.

He swiped angrily at his eyes with the sides of his hands.  He scowled down at the smoothness of his own reflection and this time he slammed his fist into it.  Water splashed his jeans and halfway up his forearm and he concentrated again on trying to turn the now much more intense ripples into waves.  The tips of his fingers grew warm but the concentric circles didn’t change, didn’t grow in power.  He sighed and nearly pulled away when they changed direction, started moving towards his finger rather than away.

The water was lapping up against the sides of his skin rather than the edges of the puddle and Stiles couldn’t figure out why.  His eyes narrowed and he shifted closer, staring intensely at where his fingertip was breaking the surface.  It was pulling in the ripples and they were coming in more choppily, like waves.  Stiles leaned in further and the skin of his hand took on a faint blue hue, like it was reflecting off something, almost as if—as if—

Were his  _eyes_ glowing?

“What are you doing?”

Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets, his right one still wet, and blinked rapidly.  Thankfully, his jeans were thick enough that he couldn’t see the glow through them.  He whipped around to stare at Derek, hoping his eyes were back to normal.  Not that he was entirely sure they’d ever been anything else.  “Waiting for you to get over yourself.”

Derek’s jaw tightened, a real boy once again.  He didn’t seem to notice anything off.  “Consider myself ‘gotten over.’”  The words had an air of finality to them.  Not that Stiles understood it.

Stiles pulled his fingers free while Derek was scowling down at his own feet.  There was no evidence left of what he’d just done, not that he could see at least.  He got to his feet, watching Derek work his throat like he was working  _through_  something.  Derek always seemed so  _affected_  by him.  “I don’t even know what I said,” Stiles admitted.

The defiance dimmed in Derek’s eyes.  “You never do,” he said, resigned to it but not saddened by it.  Sadness implied he had some  _expectation_  of Stiles, and Derek didn’t.  Stiles had no doubt that Derek didn’t think of him any more than he had to.  “You think because you say so many of them, it dilutes the power your words have.”  Derek’s eyes flashed.  “You’re wrong.”

Stiles’ mouth twisted into a frown.  He flexed his fingers.  “I don’t want  _any_  power.”

Derek’s expression went hard.  “You have it.  It’s about time you learned how to use it.”

There was their old argument, cropped up again in new context, and Stiles hated Derek for finding another place to fit it.  The last thing Stiles wanted was to ‘learn how to use’ his magic.  He didn’t want to cater to it, let it shape him any more than it already had.  He despised what it made him and yet he was terrified of losing it.  He’d never been able to rely on it and yet finding it gone would mean his father’s death had been exactly as pointless as it’d seemed.  He’d died so Derek could get Stiles out, died because his son had magic and was reckless with it.

Stiles hated it and it was vital to keep.

He didn’t know how to explain that to Derek and make him understand.  He wasn’t even sure he wanted to try.  Derek didn’t understand him, never had, and now wasn’t the time to start – without John Stilinski standing between them and acting as referee.  He’d always been more fond of Derek than Stiles was.  Loved him the way he loved Stiles, just as Stiles’ mother had.  His mother, who’d knitted Derek a pullover he was never seen without and called him ‘P’ for reasons Stiles was never clear on.

He’d thought about asking him, precisely once, after they’d come back from his mom’s funeral and he’d wanted anything in the world to distract him but Derek hadn’t shifted out of wolf form for three weeks.  Derek hadn’t been there, he’d been busy – being as broken as Stiles was.  Stiles couldn’t even hate him for it.

He half-wondered if Derek felt John’s death as sharply as Stiles did.  Sometimes he thought he might, in the heaviness of his mouth or a darkness in his eyes, but then he’d stare at Stiles, unimpressed and judgmental, and he was back to being the one-dimensional asshole who forever thought Stiles was worthless and inadequate and Stiles stopped wondering if he felt much of anything.  He was a guardian, nothing more.  He didn’t know how to do anything else.  Stiles had to stop trying to attribute a  _life_  to him.  All he did was live Stiles’, second-hand.

He set his mouth in a tight purse.  “Just get us wherever we’re going.”

Derek looked just as keyed up.  “Keep up then.”  The man was gone, wolf bounding off, and Stiles sighed and hurried to follow.  The sooner they got some breathing room away from each other, where no one had to come  _back_  for a few days or so, the better off they’d be.

Stiles did his best but the sunlight was dying down, going the red-orange of its death throes, and the same forest that had seemed inviting and vibrant now looked menacing and mean.  He followed Derek as well as he could, at twice his usual pace, eyes fixed on the dark patches of fur winding through the trees.  He occasionally had to pull himself up from a trot to a run but he was as eager to be finished with the California wilderness as Derek seemed to be.

He broke through a tree line and ran straight into Derek’s back.  The man’s.  He still had the snout.  It was an odd combination.

He must have noticed Stiles’ tilted head and sharper stare because he shook his head and the muzzle went with it.  Claws popped up as soon as he’d ridded himself of it.  He blinked down at them, confused, before huffing and ignoring them.

“What?” Stiles said gruffly, greedily using the pause to catch his breath.

“Water.  The scent of it’s strong.”

“Huh.”  Stiles stood on the balls of his feet, trying to look over Derek’s shoulder.  They were standing on a hill, the slope down was a gradual one and it was all rocks and grass as far as the eye could see.  “Can you even find it now you’ve shifted back?”

Derek’s jaw tightened.  “No, I shifted out of it because I thought it would be more fun if it was harder to find,” he said mordantly, rolling his eyes.

Stiles held up his hands, defensive and flush with it.  “Back off, dude.  You could’ve just been passing along the message.  It’s not like your wolf form is eloquent enough for it.  Not everything I say is designed to push a button so stop fucking acting like it.”

“I feel so much better then,” Derek said, sarcasm still thick in his voice, “that it’s just a happy accident.  And don’t call me ‘dude.’”

“Fuck you.”

Derek smirked.  “So you’ve said.”

“Fuck you sideways then.”

Derek ignored him.  He walked slowly down the bank, unhurriedly finding his footing as he searched out something he couldn’t be sure existed.

Stiles followed him, hating himself – and Derek, too – for having no other option.  He was completely dependent on Derek here and how benevolent he decided to be.  And ‘benevolent’ wasn’t exactly a word Stiles would usually relate to Derek.  He stepped in the same places Derek did and noticed that his sneakers  _stuck_  a little because he was walking in mud rather than the sandy dirt that had been their constant companion for the last day or so.  He allowed himself a little more hope that maybe he could wash himself of the sweat and dirt caked onto his skin.

The ground leveled out and the undergrowth got thicker.  Stiles stumbled more than once, slipping on rocks and leaves and nearly rolling his ankle.  He fell into Derek on the last unsure footing, for the second time, and Derek snarled and rounded on him.  His angry gaze flitted between Stiles’ face and the hand he’d used to catch himself on Derek’s back.

Derek snatched it up and used his own fingers to fist Stiles’ around the gathered knitwork in the small of his back.  Stiles obediently clenched his hand in it, letting his knuckles rest against the solid, warm weight of Derek.  “Rip it and I rip you,” he growled.

Stiles held on to Derek’s pullover.  “You could just call it another inconveniently placed thumb hole.”  Derek was using the thumb holes now, the lower half of his palms covered by the fuzzy plum color.  He’d had the sleeves pushed up to his elbows when the sun had been beating down on them but now that it was on its way out, he was back to status quo.  Stiles had pulled his overshirt on again, too, not chilly yet but prepared for it.

Derek snorted.  Actually snorted.  He went back to leading them, down an embankment, Stiles’ sneakers making even more heartfelt squelching sounds in the mud and his knuckles bumping against Derek’s back with every step forward as he anchored himself to him.  Derek didn’t seem to mind.  It must’ve been better than Stiles randomly slamming into him with his full weight.

Finally even Stiles heard it, the sounds of trickling water and, as soon as he could see it, he shook his fingers out of Derek’s shirt.  Derek walked a little faster without Stiles’ weight dragging him back but they both knew where they were headed now.  It was a small lake, though barely big enough to claim the name, but it’d well outgrown ‘pond.’  Somewhere between the two though.  A proper swimming hole maybe.

There was a wall of rock, awash with climbing, clinging plant life and wetness, that ringed just over half the pool and open pasture around the rest.  Derek didn’t even hesitate, shifting and leaping into it while Stiles toddled up to the edge of it.  He held his sleeve taut over his palm and scrubbed at the blood stain with water and his thumb nail.  It stubbornly stayed put and Stiles frowned down at it, wondering if maybe rubbing a little chlorophyll wouldn’t yield him a better color.

Red and green made brown if he was remembering right.  Brown wasn’t much of a step up.

Derek popped back up, drops of water dripping from his beard.  He narrowed his eyes at Stiles on the shore.  “What are you doing?”

Stiles’ hackles immediately raised.  Why did Derek have to question absolutely  _everything_  he did?  Even bristling, Stiles didn’t want to say, ‘washing your blood or blood you got on me out of my clothes.’  It wasn’t an injustice Derek had foisted on him – Derek had bled for him and shed others’ blood for him.  It wasn’t a first for either.  “Nothing,” Stiles bit out tightly.  He shrugged out of the plaid before Derek could figure it out for himself.

His t-shirt followed, then his shoes and socks and jeans.  He left them all in a pile on top of a rock, the sleeves of his overshirt folded in, his undershirt scrunched up in a ball, his socks in crumpled rolls, his sneakers set top side down, the laces hanging over the sides and ends dangling in the mud.

He waded in, in his boxers, a full-body shudder shaking him from the inside out and he’d had enough of the slow approach.  He let his knees give out and plunked his whole head and torso under.  It was cold but a few breaststrokes underwater and he wasn’t feeling it near as much.  He resurfaced to find Derek’s gaze carefully trained on him.

Stiles rolled his eyes, holding out his arms to his sides.  “Still alive, still kicking, haven’t drowned yet.”

Derek just scowled and looked away.

Stiles could feel layers come away under the refreshing promise of  _clean_.  Layers of sweat and anger and tragedy.  It was illusory and they’d be back as soon as he was on dry land again but, for now, it was nice to pretend.  He leaned back and let himself float, the last strong rays of the sun beating against his cheeks and the backs of his eyelids, painting his insides red.

He heard the splish-splash of Derek leaving their oasis but kept his eyes closed, weightless and untethered.  He almost felt like he was relaxed enough to doze and he let the water lap at the edges of his awareness, keeping in mind where he was but nothing else.  He didn’t know how long he stayed that way but the sun was gone from the sky, only a faint haze of pink near the horizon giving away that it was ever there, and the moon was beginning to peek out even though it was too early for it.

Stiles found his feet again with a heavy, easy sigh and saw Derek laying on the shore, flopped down on his side, snout wedged up under the crook of one of his front legs and ear twitching.  Three good-sized fish were laid out next to him like prizes.  Stiles blinked, wondering where and when the hell he had found those.  They certainly hadn’t come from his little pond, which meant there was another water source around – that Derek had gone off to find without him.

Stiles wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

He waded back to the shore while Derek peeked open an eye and watched him warily.  He’d obviously had his ears trained on the slightest sound from Stiles, probably because he didn’t trust Stiles not to accidentally get himself killed, either through his own doing or someone else’s.

Stiles’ upper lip raised.  He couldn’t bring anyone to mind who thought less of him than Derek.  He hauled himself out of the water and Derek lifted his head.  Stiles ground his palm into the crown of his head in a parody of petting him.  He didn’t do it hard but he did do it half-heartedly.  Derek pulled away with an odd hunch that almost looked like he was cowering.  Stiles left off and went to get his clothes.  It was always so much harder to be mean to Derek when he resembled a kicked puppy.

He was pretty sure Derek knew it, too.

“I expect you to help with this.”

Stiles whipped around.  Sometimes it was eerie how fast Derek could make the change.  There were moments when he made it look seamless and others when he was left with a furred face for two days.  Stiles still thought he had a better accuracy rate with his transformation than Stiles did with his magic.  It was infuriating.  “You want me to gut them?” he asked distastefully.

Derek held up a single claw.  He still looked oddly vulnerable in the position he was in, legs crossed and back to the woods, even with the monstrous appendages.  “The fire,” he said simply.

Stiles gave a start.  “I—fine.  You just rub two sticks together?”

Derek’s eyes flashed.  “You don’t even want to  _try_?”

Stiles shrugged, not meeting his gaze.  “I just asked you how it was done, didn’t I?”

Derek got to his feet and snagged up Stiles’ wrist as he reached for one of his socks.  He held tight, the bones sliding together painfully.  He yanked up Stiles’ hand between their faces.  “I’ve seen them,” he hissed.  “I’ve  _felt_  it.”

Stiles tried to pull away but Derek had no trouble holding on.  “Then you know it’s not working.  You  _know_  it’s wrong.”

Derek bared his teeth.  “Because you won’t take the time to  _fix it_.  To learn.  You think everything should be dropped in your lap and if it isn’t then it’s not worth knowing.  Forget that your mother spent three years learning to do the things you can do strictly by accident.”

“Don’t talk about my mom!”  Stiles’ voice had gone embarrassingly shrill and he pursed his mouth, turning his head away before Derek could mock him for it.

“The mother you didn’t even  _notice_  until she was dying?”

Stiles felt the air punch out of him and his knees completely gave out beneath him.  The only thing holding him upright was Derek’s grip on his wrist.  He was like a ragdoll in his hands.

Derek lowered them both to the ground while Stiles tried to suck in huge lungfuls of air, fingers curling into dirt and dead leaves.  His breathing was only growing more shallow though, less measured, and he stared down at his own hand through wet eyes.  “You’re right.  Y-you were a better son to her than me.  I never had enough time.  I n-never—”

“Stop.”

Stiles looked up to find Derek’s eyes had gone hard.  “I shouldn’t have—We’re being followed,” he said bluntly, apologizing without actually having to.

Stiles swallowed, hard, staring at Derek with wide eyes.

“I don’t know if they have our trail or not but they’re not giving up either way.  It’s why we’ve basically gone around in circles.”  Stiles had thought he was going a little mad – thinking he recognized certain trees.  “I’m not going to be the one to lead them into neutral territory where it’d be all too easy to start a war.”  Derek shook Stiles’ arm a little, growling.  “Where they could ask them to hand you over and they would to avoid a conflict.  It’s why I’m pushing you.  There’s no point to the fire if we can’t hide it behind an illusion.”

Stiles’ eyes were pinched and he was getting air again but not well.  Even gasping in huge breaths, it still didn’t feel like enough.  “I’m not just—” Stiles shook his head.  “I really don’t know  _how_.”

“You did it at the station,” Derek said quietly.

“It was panicked.  My dad was—” Stiles jerked away from the line of thought.  “He told me to hide and the only thing I wanted was to do what he asked me and that wouldn’t even have held another minute if you hadn’t… I owe you my life, I know that.”

Derek dropped his gaze.  “You don’t owe me anything.”

Stiles snorted.  “I know you don’t think it’s worth anything and I’m not even sure I disagree with you but I happen to like living it.”

Derek let go of him forcefully, throwing Stiles’ arm back into his chest.  He sat back on his ass, turning away from Stiles and staring out over the water, knees bent and arms loosely locked around them.  “You have this idea in your head that I think you’re nothing.”

Stiles shrugged.  “Don’t you?” he asked, squinting at him.  Stiles watched a heavy breath move through Derek, leaving his shoulders at more of a droop.  “I know you think I have the potential to be something but now I’m just… I’m a waste of that to you.”  He stared at Derek, waiting for an answer.

It was silent for a long moment before Derek realized Stiles was looking for a response.  He huffed out an amused breath.  “Your mind’s made up, Stiles.  I don’t think it matters what I say anymore.  You don’t listen to half of it anyway.”

“Of course I do,” Stiles said, bristling and – to his own surprise – more than a little offended.  “It’s not like you’re particularly chatty, dude.  Even if I dropped everything to hear every sound out of your mouth, I’d still spend 99% of my day doing anything else.”  He hunched his shoulders.  “I listen to you.  I don’t know why you think I don’t.”

Derek stood up, ignoring him.  “I’ll make it work raw,” was all he said.

It didn’t really matter.  Even though he should, Stiles had no appetite for it.  His stomach felt like it had curdled into something solid and heavy.  He stared down at his own hands with wide eyes and tried not to think about Derek.  He used his fingers as conduits, something that never failed to make Derek frown when he saw him do it.  Stiles was supposed to feed his magic into  _Derek_.  They were a closed circuit, supposedly.  An endless and uninterrupted flow of current between them, and passing from Derek back into him was meant to make it stronger, meant to focus it, but it required a connection they didn’t have and didn’t work at.

Stiles could only remember trying it once before but he hadn’t felt the slightest bit of reciprocation from Derek.  Derek had used to ask, when Stiles was younger.  He’d used to pin Stiles with sad eyes and ask why Stiles couldn’t lean on him.  He never asked anymore.

“You need to sleep.”

Stiles released a weighty breath.  “I know,” he agreed, muffled against his own knee.  Derek would stay awake, stare off into the woods and rouse Stiles if anything threatening came out of it.  Stiles didn’t doubt any of that.  He turned his head so his cheek was flat against his knee and he was staring at Derek with wide eyes.  It hurt a little, his knee was bony, but he didn’t move it.  “We have to decide what we’re going to do.  We can’t keep circling.  Forward or back, we have to choose.”

Derek’s expression hardened.  “We can’t go back.”

“So, forward?  Into neutral territory.”

Derek’s eyes cleared, like he’d thought of something.  “They’d only know these people following us were after a mage.  If they do figure out where we’re headed, if something happens and those in the neutral zone decide to protect their neutrality over the life of a stranger, and a mage at that, then we’ll play them from the start.  You’re the guardian.  I’m the magic user.”

Stiles could hardly believe what Derek had just said.  He blinked once.  “You expect me to let you risk that for me?”

Derek snorted.  “I don’t expect you to _let_ me do anything.  The path of greatest resistance, that’s the Stilinski way.”  He lifted his shoulders and said, “This is the answer, Stiles, period.  Either we do it my way or we stay out in these woods until one of us starves and you’ve got a good head start.”

“Fine.  But we don’t offer it before it’s asked.”

Derek grunted his approval while Stiles unfolded the heel of his shoe out from under his foot with a crooked finger.  He had hoped he would feel less like he was being watched once he was clothed again but he felt just as vulnerable as he did before.

“Sleep.”

Stiles looked up at Derek, a bit dumbfounded by the suggestion.  Derek had just told him they weren’t alone out here and now he expected Stiles to pretend otherwise?

Derek’s mouth quirked to the side and he said, surprisingly reassuring, “I won’t let anything happen.”

But that wasn’t something Derek could promise.  He’d already let something happen, at the station.  These men had already gotten to Stiles once.

“You’re safe, Stiles.”

That much was true, at least.  Derek had kept him safe.  He’d taken a blade to the back but he’d gotten Stiles out without so much as a scratch.  Stiles could trust that even if everything else was uncertain – Derek would do everything in his power to make sure Stiles made it out of any situation, whole and unharmed if he could manage it, too.  And there was no one left to be collateral damage no matter what the equation.

Stiles laid down and Derek set his hand down in the dirt next to his face, almost like he was reassuring Stiles that he was there, without saying Stiles  _needed_  it though.  But that would imply he cared, that Stiles’ safety was anything more than a job he  _had_  to do, that he inherently knew what Stiles needed, and Stiles didn’t believe any of that.

He closed his eyes and the tenseness and fear bled out of him in waves as the silence and stillness lulled him into a sense of security.  Next to him, Derek was a warm, unmoving presence.

* * *

Something soft and warm closed over Stiles’ mouth and his eyes popped open.  It was a moment before he was able to process the warning in Derek’s green eyes.  Derek held the finger of his free hand up to his mouth.  Stiles nodded emphatically, Derek’s hand still clapped over the lower half of his face.

It wasn’t quite morning but on that side of the night.  There was a pale fog covering the ground and Stiles could only see a few feet in every direction without squinting.  He got to his feet, Derek and his hand moving with him.  When they were both standing, Derek let go and Stiles mouthed, ‘ _Where_?’

Derek pitched his voice low, eyes going dark and no longer focused on Stiles but, rather, their surroundings.  “Close.  We need to move.”

Stiles latched onto Derek’s pullover, twisting his fingers in the hem at the small of his back like he had the day before.  He was totally the guy who tripped on a root while being chased by the ax-wielding psychopath.  Derek wasn’t and Stiles was trying to give himself every advantage here.

Derek moved swiftly but silently and Stiles did his best to imitate that.  Fear was punching its way up his throat and every one of his steps felt  _loud_  and like it was being mirrored by someone just beyond the fog.

“Stiles,” Derek hissed, “ _stop_.”

Stiles swallowed, eyes going round while he craned his head in every direction.  He had no idea what Derek was talking about until he looked down.  The fingers of his left and his entire right hand were glowing a vibrant, neon pink.  It was like a beacon in the darkest night.  Stiles clenched his fingers.  “I don’t know  _how_.  Derek, I can’t—” he shook his hands out, feeling panic inflate his lungs, “I can’t turn it off.”

Derek turned and grabbed both Stiles’ hands, trying to hide them in his own.  They were sweating.  “You have to calm down, Stiles.  Calm.  Down,” he ordered, his own voice beyond steady.  “You’ve worked yourself into this.  You’re scared and your magic thinks you’re calling on it so your first and only move is to calm down.”

Stiles nodded a little, curling his hands further into Derek’s while closing his eyes and drawing in sharp, shallow breaths.  All he had to do was—

“It’s a bit late for that.”

Stiles’ eyes shot open again and his heart lodged itself in his throat.  An accent Stiles didn’t recognize had twisted the words, made the consonants softer and hissing.  Derek let go and pushed Stiles behind him, baring his teeth and glaring into the mist.  Stiles worked a swallow down his throat, hoping it would drop his heart back where it belonged.  “I should try to use this, shouldn’t I?” he whispered, staring down at his own shaking fingers.  The tips of all of them were still glowing.

Derek tilted his head but didn’t take his eyes off the gray expanse in front of them.  “If you think you can.”

Which was just so like him, to poke at Stiles’ lack of control even when they were in a situation like this.  Stiles drew in a shuddering breath and tried to focus on using this to  _do_  something.  He’d only ever had to rely on it in a situation like this once before, and all he’d managed then was a flickering illusion and a fireball that had flared up from a cigarette still smoldering in the ashtray and then gone out a half-second later.  He’d rarely used his magic before that and even more rarely did so purposefully.  It was forbidden, persecuted and best hidden.

Now he was expected to know what to do when a man made of as much shadow as the fog in front of them stepped through it.  He was covered from head to toe in black, his mask an exaggerated human face.  He had a sword drawn already.

Derek’s arm caged Stiles in behind him, like he thought Stiles might decide to do something stupid.

Stiles concentrated on trying to make his whole hand phosphoresce again.  Nothing happened except the glow growing weaker.  He was supposed to work  _with_  the elements rather than against them, or something like that.  There was a tree behind the dude with the sword.  All Stiles had to do was will the ground around the roots to get loose.  He hoped.  He closed his eyes and envisioned the ground shifting, the tree becoming unmoored, falling to the forest floor.

When Stiles opened his eyes again, the light from his fingertips was almost snuffed out completely and the man in the mask was advancing.  Derek took a few steps forward and Stiles made a split decision.  His hand shot out and awkwardly closed around Derek’s, catching mostly his lower palm and wrist.  The pink glow surged forward and Derek instantly clasped Stiles’ hand back, pulling it in, making them fit, threading their fingers together until both their hands were encased in pink light.

Stiles didn’t even have time to call up the image of the shifting dirt, the loosened roots, the leaning tree, before the ground beneath them shook, lurched and everything within a mile radius was flattened.  Derek and Stiles were thrown onto their backs, the trees slammed down in a circle around them and the other man fell back just as hard, like something huge and powerful had impacted the ground between the three of them and blown outward.

Stiles had lost track of Derek in the not-so-fiery explosion but he barely even had time to rub at his head before hands were fisting in the shoulders of his shirt and raising him up.  “Let’s go,” Derek snarled, practically dragging Stiles to his feet.

Stiles felt woozy and he was glad Derek was still acting as an anchoring presence in front of him because he wasn’t sure he would still be standing without him.  Not only was the magic gone from his fingertips but it was like the well had run dry entirely.  He felt hollowed out, scorched from the inside out.

Derek shook him a little.  “What did you do?”

Stiles swallowed.  “I don’t—I don’t.  I  _told_  you it didn’t work.”  He shoved Derek back, off of him, feeling more stable and more furious.  “I told you it was wrong.  You say I don’t listen to you but you don’t listen to  _me_.  I don’t know what happened.  I don’t—I wasn’t even trying to—”

Stiles’ upper arm seared with pain as the blade sliced in and he drew away with a hiss.  He clapped his fingers over the cut, the blood wet and warm beneath his hand.

Derek rounded on the shadowy figure in an instant.  His mouth opened wide, fanged and animal in the face of a man.  He lunged, getting the man’s neck and shoulder in his bite.  He  _ripped_  back out.  Red poured over his chin and down his pullover as the man fell away, torn skin and spurts of blood left behind.  His eyes were wide, the whites particularly white, and he stumbled back, stunned, before he keeled over dead.

“Stiles.”  Derek’s voice was raked over with desperation.

Stiles shook his head, biting into his cheek as the wound throbbed with his own heartbeat.  “It’s nothing.  I’m fine.”  He took in a sharp breath through his nostrils, opening his eyes to find Derek’s face inches from his own.  He looked monstrous, skin pale against the blood that was darkening as it dried.  Stiles reached up with his sleeve pulled down over his hand and scrubbed at Derek’s face with it.

Derek pulled away.  “You don’t have to—”

Stiles shrugged, pressing his hand harder into his own bicep and hoping the pressure was effectively staunching the wound.  “It’s already ruined, dude.  It had blood on it from as far back as the station.”

“Not—”  _your dad’s_.  Derek swallowed it and Stiles went back to cleaning his face of blood in gratitude for that.

When he finished – and it wasn’t perfect, there were flakes of dried blood still and some of it was caked on stubbornly – Derek no longer looked like a zombie movie extra.  He held out his hand for the shirt and Stiles offered it without protest.  He watched as Derek meticulously tore along the stitching at the shoulder that connected the good sleeve until he’d separated the pieces completely.  He folded it over twice, batted Stiles’ hand away from his injury, and tied it – first too tight, and then more comfortably – around the cut.

“So long as it doesn’t get infected, you should be fine,” Derek grunted.

Stiles watched him carefully.  “I know,” he said back, non-combative for once.  He stared down at their murdered would-be assassin.  “It could’ve been worse, I know that.”  His throat worked down a swallow.  “Do you think there are more of them?”

Derek followed Stiles’ gaze and snarled.  “Yes.”  He knelt down next to the man’s still body, remorseless, and Stiles wasn’t sure that was the wrong thing to be feeling.  Derek spread his fingers out over the man’s face and fitted them over the mask, using the whole of his hand to remove it.  The second it pulled back – even slightly – the body, the mask, every last bit of him eroded into smoke in an instant.  “Someone doesn’t want us to know who he was working for.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Derek pursed his lips.  “There were stories,” he said noncommittally.  “But I didn’t—They weren’t ones I wanted to know.”  He looked up at Stiles, expression fierce and somehow guilty.  “Beacon Hills was safe.  Maybe if you’d wanted to leave but—”

“It was home,” Stiles finished for him.

Derek nodded.

Stiles reached down and dug bloody fingers into Derek’s shoulder.  He said firmly, “It will be again.”

Derek didn’t exactly look convinced but he didn’t argue either.

Stiles sighed and looked out at his self-made clearing with pinched eyes.  “I gave us away.  This is.  This is basically a big, fat, red ‘X.’  We were here, I definitely do have magic and blood was spilled.”  Stiles’ mouth pulled to the side.  “I never wanted it though.  I don’t—I can’t even use it right.  All it’s done is made things worse and I—”

Derek stood up, grabbed Stiles’ chin and yanked it up so they were staring into each other’s eyes.  “You haven’t had the time to learn.  You’ve ignored it rather than embraced it and that wasn’t a wrong choice, considering the reaction people have to it.  But it’s—It’s just like any other muscle.  It needs to be worked out to be at its peak.”

Stiles brushed him off after an awkward pause.  “Well I’ve always been a scrawny, gawky kid so I’m not exactly the poster child for any of this.”

Derek rolled his eyes, looking almost disappointed.  “Give up before trying so you can’t fail.”  He sat down away from Stiles, stretching out his legs some so his knees weren’t bent so much, and rubbed his forehead.  “That’s a surprise coming from you.”

“Like there’s anything I do that you approve of,” Stiles retorted with a scoff.

Derek sat back, letting his back flatten against a fallen tree.  He sighed heavily, closing his eyes.  “You’d have to  _do_  something first.”

Stiles’ jaw clenched and he resisted the urge to spit, ‘fuck you’ at Derek for the third time in recent memory.  He wasn’t practicing his forbidden magic or killing people so apparently he wasn’t doing enough for Derek to consider him doing  _anything_.  Stiles looked away from Derek and said softly, genuinely, “Why didn’t you just let him kill me?  You hate me so much, don’t you think oblivion might be better than being shackled to me for the rest of my life?”

Derek snorted.  “This pity-party is pathetic.  Don’t pretend you even care what I think, Stiles.  I’m something you’re tethered to, not something you chose.”

Stiles clenched his fingers into fists.  “You’re all I have left!” he burst out.  “Do you not get that?  You’re fucking _it_ , Derek!  I don’t have any friends, I don’t have any family, I have  _you_  and your shit opinions of me.  Of course I care what you think because you’re the only other person I have left to  _talk to_!  I can’t tell you how much I resent that but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re it.  You’re all I’ve got.”

Derek stared up at him, eyes narrowed and cold.  He picked at his thumbnail with his pinky finger.  “I’m a mathematical remainder.”  He worked his jaw.

“No, that’s not what I—” Stiles huffed and ran a hand through his hair.  “I was trying to tell you that you  _mean something_.”

Derek got to his feet with a harsh breath.  He moved into Stiles’ space, baring his teeth.  “No, you were trying to tell me that you’ve lost everything else and you haven’t figured out  _how_  to get rid of me yet.”

Stiles expected him to storm off.  It was Derek’s go to move, but he didn’t.  He probably couldn’t.  They’d both nearly just died and Derek’s whole existence revolved around making sure that outcome never came about.  Stiles rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion hitting him hard.  He looked back at Derek, eyes dropping to the pullover his mom had knitted.  It was drenched in blood, the fabric heavy with it.  Stiles grunted, nodding to it.  It was neutral enough.  “I’m sorry, man.  I know how much you loved that thing.”

Derek’s brow furrowed in confusion.  After a long moment, he seemed to notice what Stiles was focusing on.  He shrugged, unconcerned, pinched the bloodstained sweater in his thumb and forefinger with a snap.  “It’ll be fine after the first shift.”  He must have noticed how lost Stiles still seemed.  “This, it’s illusory.  Most of it is.”

“Meaning?”

Derek looked slightly exasperated.  “You expect to see me clothed after the shift, which helps me actually achieve that.  Your belief carries more power than you know.  It means I can change my appearance using your power.  Even seeing it ruined, you’ll forget sooner or later, which will make it that much easier to see it clean.”

Stiles stared at him, dumbfounded, before a slow smirk spread over one side of his face.  “So, you’re saying I’m, like… your stylist?”

Derek rolled his eyes.  “I imagine there’d be a lot more plaid in the picture if that were true,” he said with a sneer.  “Your power gives me the ability to be my own, I guess.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows.  “You’re welcome.”

Derek rolled his eyes harder.

Stiles bit down on a yawn but let himself slide down to the ground.  It was still dark but steadily lightening up.  The fog probably wouldn’t last out the hour.  He squinted up at Derek, zeroing in on the elbows of his sweater.  “Why’s it going fuzzy then?”

Derek stiffened.  He looked away and it seemed like he wouldn’t answer.  Stiles’ eyelids were heavy by the time he said, “Because we’re not what we should be.”  It was hard to even attribute meaning to the words.  Stiles’ brain was laced with sleep and useless at deciphering the esoteric phrase.  In fact, he couldn’t seem to do anything more than slump down further.  Through the slits of his eyes, he saw Derek frown thoughtfully at him.  “We have a few hours before we would have had to move without—” his gaze flickered away, Stiles guessed to stare down at where the body had fallen.  “Sleep if you want it.”

Stiles did.

* * *

Stiles scrabbled at the hand grabbing his shoulder, digging his short nails into warm, pliant skin.

“Stiles,  _stop_.”

Stiles’ eyes flew open, taking in Derek kneeling over him, the fingers digging into his shoulder as Derek shook him awake.  “Sorry, I—”

“I know.  No one came and I didn’t hear anything that indicated they will either.”

Stiles swallowed, feeling his panic drop back down his throat like a physical weight.  “Good.  That’s good.”  He scrubbed at his hair, only realizing when he tried to raise his left hand that it was still wrapped around Derek’s wrist.  He dragged it away.  “Forward, right?”

Derek looked grim but determined.  “Forward.”

Stiles blinked around at their surroundings.  The fog had lifted but it had started spitting at some random moment while Stiles was sleeping.  Because that was just the kind of luck they had.  A raindrop landed on his eyelashes and, before he could even get indignant, Derek’s thumb was brushing it away, sans gentility.  Stiles edged his hand away with a scowl before Derek could give him an accidental black eye.

Derek gave him an unimpressed look and clasped Stiles’ hand to help him to his feet.

Stiles pulled away as soon as he was steady and wiped his hands on his jeans.  “Derek, this—where we’re going?”  Derek perked his brows, questioning, and already looking defensive.  “What are we hoping to find there?”

Derek gave him an assessing look.  “Answers.”

Stiles frowned with half his face.  That basically wasn’t one.  And Stiles might’ve thought Derek could appreciate the need for a straightforward one considering how far they were trekking for this, but he clearly did not.  It wasn’t easy, but Stiles forced himself to let it go.

The day didn’t improve any.  Derek grew tenser and more monosyllabic the further along they got and the sun never managed to break free of the clouds that had imprisoned it, so it was gloomy and dark from start to stop.  If Stiles were a believer in omens, he might’ve taken the general bleakness as one.  He wasn’t, thankfully.

Mostly he was certain this was a terrible idea because Derek had all but _told_  him it was a terrible idea.

Derek stopped, his entire being seeming to vibrate with something, before he turned back to Stiles.  “Here.”  Stiles blinked.  All he saw was more woods.  “See?”

He really,  _really_  didn’t.  “What?”

Derek glared.  “Look behind you,” he said, annoyed.  Stiles did.  “Notice anything?”

Stiles alternated between looking at Derek and looking at the woods they’d just tromped through.  All he saw was a scowly, bearded man who was getting progressively more scowly (though not more bearded) with each time Stiles made the circuit.  Out of his periphery, on one of the turns, he caught more of the woods behind Derek than Derek himself.  The next time, he was more careful to scrutinize both.  His mouth dropped open.  “Mirror images,” he practically gasped out.

Derek’s shoulders drooped in relief.  “About damn time.”

Stiles ignored him, stepping up to his side and holding his hand out where the images met.  He expected to feel a solid barrier or maybe even something that felt like a bowl of Jell-O where the fold was but his fingertips met nothing but thin air.  Trees the exact same height, with the exact same leaf count, waved at each other.  A crinkled and fallen leaf tumbled over itself next to Stiles’ shoe and also almost a foot away from it.  The trunk where the crease in the universe was almost, but not  _quite,_  lined up perfectly.  Its proportions were off, starting to taper in before fattening up again, like it was two trees growing together rather than one.  Stiles frowned curiously.  “What would happen if we kept walking?”

“We’d eventually find ourselves back in Beacon Hills, having traveled a perfect circle.”

Stiles’ eyes lit up, fascinated.  “Awesome.”  He shook himself out of it.  “So.  How do we get through?”

Derek shifted behind him and pushed him forward a step.  “You  _want_  to get through,” he said simply.

Stiles blinked a few times rapidly, his guts beginning to squirm.  He folded his lips into his mouth.  “It’s a  _neutral_  zone, right?  That means both sides have to be able to access it, magic and not.”

Derek’s voice was gruff, unamused.  “They have their own ways in, we have ours.”

“Derek, I can’t—”

“Yes,” Derek growled.  “You can.”  He kept his hand pressed in just under Stiles’ shoulder blade.  “Close your eyes.”  Stiles looked back at him, one brow raised, and Derek rolled his eyes, unimpressed.  Stiles turned back and closed his eyes, settling his shoulders, trying to trust Derek not to do anything too horrible.  “Picture the other side.”

Stiles huffed.  “Great plan, except I have no idea what the other side _looks like_.”  He gesticulated wildly with his hands but kept his eyes firmly closed.

Derek sounded like he was nearing the end of his patience.  “You don’t  _have_  to know, just imagine something  _else_ , somewhere with answers about who killed your dad.”

Stiles’ eyes shot open and he was nearly shocked stupid.  Because he hadn’t even been trying, he  _hadn’t_  been picturing anything else, so sure Derek was wrong or trying to make a fool of him.  Yet he wasn’t staring into a mirage of woods.  It was a city square, some cross between Diagon Alley and the poor, provincial town Belle lived in, in  _Beauty and the Beast_.  Caught halfway between magic and normality.  The  _sound_  of people bustling about, cars driving over cobbles, kids running and laughing and just the general  _noise_  of life being lived was sudden and overwhelming in the basic vacuum of silence they’d had.  Shops lined the road the woods opened out on and a fountain gurgled in the center of the square, kids in their shorts climbing in and out of it.  He looked back to find Derek grinning almost proudly.  When he noticed Stiles looking, it smoothed into a smirk.  “Told you so,” he said smugly.

Stiles resisted the urge to punch him in the face.  It wasn’t easy, even with all the new and sudden sensory information pouring in.  “Where are we going?” he asked, to distract himself further.

Derek didn’t actually answer, just grabbed Stiles by the forearm and grunted, “Come on.”  He walked them straight across the main road, weaving them in and out of people who smiled and looked nice and normal enough.  One of the kids from the fountain ran straight into Derek’s legs, staring up at him with a wobbling lower lip.  Derek decided to handle that by snarling at him.  The already soaked kid looked like he met wet himself.

Derek looked pleased over that and Stiles scoffed.  Which he shouldn’t have, because the hand around his forearm tightened almost painfully.  Derek pulled him along a little more viciously, around a corner, and led them towards the largest place Stiles had seen yet.  It was pretty much the Gringotts bank of their Diagon Alley.  The steps they were climbing led up to a light, stone building that had honest to God pillars in front.  All that was missing was the creeptastic rhyme.  And the dragons.  Stiles kind of  _hoped_  it was missing the dragons.

He expected the doors would open up on an echoing antechamber and that would lead to some maze of hallways beyond and Stiles would have to dig deep, find his spark, prove his magic again and they’d end up in some swanky office designed to impress as much as intimidate.  And maybe there’d be goblins.  Instead, Derek opened the doors and the place looked mostly abandoned.  Gloom was the only thing that could penetrate past the slats on the windows and dust made Stiles’ eyes water.

It  _was_  an echoing antechamber, but a forgotten one.  Stiles frowned, realizing whatever stories Derek had heard of this, they’d either been too late to see them or lies.

Only, looking at Derek, he didn’t seem disappointed in the slightest.  In fact, it didn’t even slow him down.  He crossed the room and found a narrow door at the end of the huge hall.  It opened on a stairwell, one that made a lot of clanging and induced claustrophobia as they clomped two flights down, which was as deep as it was possible to go.  They ended up on a basement level that appeared to be used for storing cobwebs and empty boxes with mold on the bottoms.  Real state secrets.

Derek still didn’t slow down any, their footsteps echoing down a cavernous hallway.  Stiles got the feeling they were well and truly underground.  When a drop of water dripped into his eye while he was staring up at the ceiling trying to suss it out, that thought was all but confirmed in his mind.

Derek let go of him when he reached the metal double doors at the other end.

Stiles’ eyes widened and he actually whistled.  The wrong way, sucking in rather than blowing out because – despite his dad’s tireless lessons – he’d never learned to do it right.  The thought  _hurt_  and he pulled back from it.  The room was expansive, like above, and, like above, empty of anyone else.  It was pristine, sparse, and the desk and chairs and  _art_  all looked like Stiles could get into a lifetime-in-debt situation if he broke or desecrated any of it.  He made a mental note not to do either of those things.  He turned to Derek and said brightly, “I have to admit, this is a lot nicer than I was expecting from an underground basement that didn’t look fancy enough to store egg crates.”

The voice came from behind them and scraped against the vertebrae in Stiles’ spine as he stiffened in surprise.  “A perk of neutrality means there are always sides hoping to sway you from it,” said a calm, rich tenor, amusement twisting through the words as though it was a shared joke.  A dark-skinned man with a shaved head appeared from behind them.  He carefully paced the room to stand in place behind the massive desk and gestured for them to take the chairs in front of it.  They had an antique, fragile appearance.  Stiles was afraid to even look at them too hard.   “Gentlemen,” he prodded with a gentle smile when neither of them moved.  He had a chilling air about him that wasn’t necessarily all bad and a kind of effortless cool.

Next to him, Stiles was painfully aware of the fact that he was only sixteen and that Derek regularly came out of the shift with two sets of ears.  He thought Derek might be feeling the same inadequacy because he followed the direction with more than a little obvious obstinance, moving forward but standing behind the chair rather than actually putting it to use and crossing his arms over his chest, clearly trying to puff himself up some.

Stiles mimicked him, without the folded arms and attitude, and tried not to let his intense discomfort manifest itself in ramble.  He failed.  “This feels kind of like we’ve just entered foreign territory without a translator or even a smidge of familiarity with the customs.”

The man’s smile widened to a grin.  His teeth were freakishly white.  “Surely it’s not as bad as all that?”  He seemed to be trying to put them at ease but Stiles couldn’t quite trust it.  His eyes were too intelligent, his expression too calculating.

Derek didn’t seem to be faring much better on that front either.  His teeth squeaked together from how hard he was grinding them.

Stiles winced when Derek’s glare shot over to him.  It’s not like he’d  _meant_  to say that out loud.  “Let’s just assume I’ve made the requisite  _Airplane_  reference and move on to business.”

The other man looked amused and lowered himself into his own fancy seat, willingly giving them the upper hand as they remained standing.  He steepled his fingers in Dumbledore-esque fashion.  “What can I do for you?” he asked accommodatingly enough.

“We need a name,” Derek said gruffly, barely keeping it above a growl.  Stiles would not be voting him Head of the Department of Tourism.

The man’s smile was benign.  “Any one in particular or shall I pluck one from thin air and send you on your way?” he asked pleasantly and Stiles instantly warmed to him without conscious decision behind it.  Not only was this dude sarcastic but he also hid it under a guise of genuine article misunderstanding.  Which meant he was funny, and also a little douche-y.  Just the way Stiles liked his bald henchmen.

He sank into his seat.  “Sassmaster, I approve,” was blurted out of his mouth.  Derek glowered and Stiles winced again.

The man tipped his head to him.  “I prefer Alan or Dr. Deaton or even Special K,” at Derek’s shocked eyebrows, he added with a nod in his direction, “an affectionate nickname when used by some.”

Stiles frowned thoughtfully.  “Ketamine, right?”  Deaton waited patiently and Stiles’ mouth twisted down further.  “Isn’t that a sedative?”

“Indeed,” he answered, sounding pleased.  Stiles wasn’t sure if it was because Stiles had figured it out – he definitely had that mentor-mentee vibe going on – or because of what the nickname said about him.

Derek took a step closer and Deaton’s eyes cut over to him.  “The sheriff of Beacon Hills—”

Deaton frowned, tapping his steepled fingers against his closed lips.  “John Stilinski, a good man.”  Stiles flinched and Derek shot him a dark glare, like he was giving too much away.  And he was, because Deaton gave him a sympathetic look.  “It was tragic, what happened to him.”

“It was a little more than that,” Derek insisted, almost violently.

Deaton wasn’t fazed.  His dark brown eyes sliced over to Stiles, seeming to brighten the longer he looked.  “The rumor around the water cooler is that his boy was a mage.”  Deaton leaned forward in his seat.  He collapsed his hands together so they were gripping one another but kept both index fingers upright.  He pointed at Stiles with them.  “You, I’m presuming.”

Derek shifted so that he was standing right in front of Deaton, thighs pressed up against his desk.  “Me,” he snarled.

Deaton didn’t even glance at him, his gaze fixed on Stiles.  “Stiles, wasn’t it?”

Stiles’ eyes widened in surprise.

Derek bent over further to get Deaton’s attention  _off_  of Stiles.  His teeth started to go sharp, which was only obvious once he’d bared them.  “I told you,” and the words were ever so slightly slurred, “it’s—”

Something blunt and mean-looking found itself an inch from Derek’s neck.  It sparked with visible electricity and Stiles could see Derek’s throat work down a careful snarl.  “Step back, Guardian.”

At the warning, Stiles focused on the person holding the baton.  She was shorter than Derek by almost a head, dressed in a loose top and tight bottoms.  She cut a slight figure in the room but her presence was  _large_.  Her mouth had its own way of snarling, a quiet, understated way, but Stiles didn’t doubt that she was capable of  _biting_.  Sleek, black hair framed her dark, thin face on either side.

She straightened up, like she was ready for any eventuality, even putting down a man capable of growing fangs.  There was no fear in her, no tremor, only quiet power and Stiles was more wary around her than he’d been around the assassin whose throat Derek had ripped out.

“Derek,” Stiles said firmly, eyes narrowing at where the voltage was roiling next to Derek’s skin.  He was standing, shoulders squared.  He didn’t remember doing that.  “His name is Derek.”

Her head tilted to the side, curious.  She didn’t lower her baton.  “I wasn’t even aware his kind had names,” she said with her upper lip raised, looking at Derek like he was some kind of inferior subspecies that she would have no trouble wiping out.

Stiles lurched forward at the same time that Deaton waved off the woman in his periphery.  “Forgive my sister’s intrusion,” he said, voice hard for the first time and eyes trained on his sister.  “I assure you, Marin was just leaving.”  It was obviously more order than suggestion.  When Stiles looked back to confirm that suspicion, he saw that Deaton was no longer speaking  _to_  his sister.  Instead, he was staring at where Stiles’ hands were poised at his sides, talking  _at them_.

Stiles blinked.  His fingertips were glowing a deep red.  He looked up to find Derek staring at them as well in unabashed confusion, awe, and something else that Stiles couldn’t pinpoint.  He met Stiles’ gaze and turned away fiercely.

Deaton spoke into the weighty silence while his sister withdrew from the room.  “Guardians, you understand, draw something of an audience, rare as they are.  I don’t believe anyone is aware you have one.”  Stiles glanced back at him and Deaton’s features darkened with solemnity.  “Strive to keep it that way.”

That had  _definitely_  felt like a warning as much as advice.  The metal door clanged closed behind them, a fitting punctuation to Deaton’s words and the girl with the electricity in her hands’ disappearance.

Derek had apparently snapped out of whatever had been keeping him immobile and he demanded tactlessly, “Do you mean to help us or not?”

Deaton pursed his lips.  “You want to know who was responsible for the men sent after Stiles, who murdered his father?”  It sounded like a genuine question, like he suspected Derek might have ulterior motives for this meeting.  Stiles couldn’t even begin to guess what those might be,  _if_  they even existed.  He glanced at Derek curiously and knew that if he asked, he would trust whatever answer Derek gave him.

The realization surprised him.

“Yes,” Derek bit out unapologetically.

Stiles watched him carefully.  He hadn’t known, when Derek had first dragged them into the woods, that this was what they were after – some twisted form of justice for his dad.  And maybe they hadn’t been, not at first.  Maybe it had been all about survival and now Derek had managed that, he wanted something more satisfying.  And however foolish that was, _Stiles_  wanted it, too.  He looked up at Derek, shoulders heaving and eyes vicious, and knew.  Derek didn’t just want this for his own vengeance, he wanted it for Stiles’ too.

And Stiles had no idea how he’d known Stiles needed that before he even knew himself.

Deaton watched Derek, considering.  It was the first time he’d treated Derek like an intelligent, distinct and independent organism.  Derek actually looked a bit spooked by it.  It didn’t last and Deaton was back to looking at and speaking to Stiles.  He stood up, letting his fingertips hover about an inch above his desk towards either end.  “Normally I would tell you to grieve this and move on but this—Lines have been crossed, boundaries overstepped.”  His mouth pursed and the words almost sounded like a proclamation of some kind.  “Your father was a police officer, a peace keeper, and the balance has been disrupted with his murder.  The sides have been altered, tipped out of your favor when neither entity is meant to have an advantage.  Neutrality, as I choose to understand it, means setting the scales right once again.”

Stiles had a feeling this Deaton dude fell back on ‘as I understand it’ quite a bit.  He swallowed. “Tell me then.”  His voice was raw, desperate, and he noticed that Derek had shifted closer from his periphery.  Derek didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it.

Deaton had clearly heard it too because he frowned sympathetically.  “I’m afraid I genuinely do not know, Stiles.  There’s been talk of it but no one’s attributed a name to the attack.”  Claimed credit, more like.  Stiles let out a harsh breath and ran a hand through his hair, collapsing into his chair again and scrubbing at his face.  Deaton’s next words were cautious, walking the line of uncertain.  “However, I mightknow of someone who could help you.”

Stiles shot up, feeling almost manic.  Hope and terror fought for prominence in his throat.

Deaton’s eyes were wide, serious.  “A banshee by the name of Lydia Martin,” he said guardedly.

Derek let out a sound of disgust and he had claws when he snatched the shoulder of Stiles’ t-shirt in his hand, nails scraping, and tried to drag him around.  “Forget it, Stiles,” he snapped, breathing hard.  His gaze was dark and intense when it focused on Deaton.  “This was a waste of time,” he snarled.

Stiles stood firm, not letting Derek push him around for once.  He pulled Derek’s hand away, his eyes focused on nothing but Deaton.  “Where?” he croaked and he felt Derek freeze next to him.  “Where is she?”

“ _Stiles_ ,” he hissed, shock and hurt in the word.  Banshees were reviled even worse than magic users.  They kept company with Death, always hoping to up His quota.  They were manipulative, mistrusted and murderous.  And Stiles was desperate to find this one.  Derek made a grab for Stiles’ forearm but he ripped it away before Derek had even made contact.

Derek backed up a few steps as though trying to distance himself from the whole thing.

Stiles would let him.  He wouldn’t make Derek do this with him.  It was probably something he had to do on his own anyway.  It was  _his_  dad who had died as a direct result of  _his_  mistake.  Wasn’t the hero’s journey always a lonely one?  Deaton knew about guardians, maybe he knew how to separate them, too.

Derek shied away further, like he knew the path Stiles’ thoughts were taking.  He might, for all Stiles knew.

Deaton’s eyes tracked him carefully.  After a moment’s pause, they went from narrow to wide and he leaned back, standing up straighter.  “It won’t be an easy journey,” he cautioned.  His gaze flitted between Stiles and Derek.  “You’ll have to be willing to work for the answers you seek.”  He breathed in sharply and said, “I can only hope that by the end of it you’ll know what to do with them once they’re found.”

Stiles nodded curtly, wishing he didn’t feel even half as relieved as he did when Derek stepped close, taking the spot at his side meaningfully.

 

* * *

tbc in pt. ii

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to stalk me on my [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/) so I update ASAP, jeezy creezy. Also, comments on wips are love. ♥


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